operated pinball machines, with many locations quickly recovering the cost of the game. The game resonated with people wanting cheap entertainment in the Great Depression-era economy. Selling for $17.50, the game dispensed five to seven balls for a penny. In 1931 David Gottlieb's Baffle Ball became the first hit of the coin-operated era. The table was under glass and used Montague Redgrave's plunger device to propel the ball into the upper playfield. 1932īy the 1930s, manufacturers were producing coin-operated versions of bagatelles, now known as 'marble games' or 'pin games'. Redgrave's popularization of the spring launcher and innovations in game design are acknowledged as the birth of pinball in its modern form.Īn early pinball game without flippers, c. The balls became marbles and the wickets became small metal pins. The game also shrank in size to fit atop a bar or counter. Patent #115,357 for his 'Improvements in Bagatelle', another name for the spring launcher that was first introduced in Billard japonais. In 1869, British inventor Montague Redgrave settled in the United States and manufactured bagatelle tables in Cincinnati, Ohio. 1869: Spring launchers become mainstream The player shot balls up the inclined playfield toward the scoring targets using this plunger, a device that remains in use in pinball to this day, and the game was also directly ancestral to pachinko. Also called Stosspudel, it used thin metal pins and replaced the cue at the player's end of the table with a coiled spring and a plunger. Somewhere between the 1750s and 1770s, the bagatelle variant Billard japonais, or Japanese billiards in English, was invented in Western Europe, despite its name. A standardized version of the game eventually became known as bagatelle. Players could ricochet balls off the pins to achieve the more challenging scorable holes. Pins took too long to reset when knocked down, so they were eventually fixed to the table, and holes in the table's bed became the targets. In France, during the long 1643–1715 reign of Louis XIV, billiard tables were narrowed, with wooden pins or skittles at one end of the table, and players would shoot balls with a stick or cue from the other end, in a game inspired as much by bowling as billiards. It already has a spring mechanism to propel the ball, 100 years before Montague Redgrave's patent. Late 18th century: Spring launcher invented īillard japonais, Alsace, France c. The tabletop versions of these games became the ancestors of modern pinball. The evolution of outdoor games finally led to indoor versions that could be played on a table, such as billiards, or on the floor of a pub, like bowling and shuffleboard. Croquet, golf and pall-mall eventually derived from ground billiards variants. Games played outdoors by rolling balls or stones on a grass course, such as bocce or bowls, eventually evolved into various local ground billiards games played by hitting the balls with sticks and propelling them at targets, often around obstacles. The origins of pinball are intertwined with the history of many other games.

History Pre-modern: Development of outdoor and tabletop ball games

The biggest pinball machine manufacturers historically include Bally Manufacturing, Gottlieb, Williams Electronics and Stern Pinball.Ĭurrently active pinball machine manufacturers include Stern Pinball, Jersey Jack Pinball, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming Company, Pinball Brothers, Haggis Pinball, Dutch Pinball, Spooky Pinball and Multimorphic, Inc., as well as several smaller boutique manufacturers.

Most pinball machines use one ball per turn (except during special multi-ball phases), and the game ends when the ball(s) from the last turn are lost. The game's object is generally to score as many points as possible by hitting these targets and making various shots with flippers before the ball is lost. Today, pinball is most commonly an arcade game in which the ball is fired into a specially designed cabinet known as a pinball machine, hitting various lights, bumpers, ramps, and other targets depending on its design. Historically the board was studded with nails called 'pins' and had hollows or pockets which scored points if the ball came to rest in them. Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Multi-ball game on a White Water pinball machine

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